If humans and bears are going to coexist at Lake Tahoe and the Sierra foothills, humans must use some common sense to prevent dangerous encounters.

That includes making it difficult, if not impossible, for the bears to find food in places where they don't belong. Wildlife experts estimate that 95 percent of human-bear conflicts are trash related, The Associated Press reported this week.

That's why it's disappointing that residents of Incline Village have yet to come up with an enforceable plan to expand the use of bear-resistant trash containers throughout the Lake Tahoe community that has been a favorite haunt of hungry bears in recent years.

With the three-year-old drought cutting into the bears' natural food supplies, Incline's residents could pay a high price for their recalcitrance this summer.

The bear problem at the lake and in the Sierra is a very real one.

Officials caught 97 bears in 2013, the largest total since another drought year, 2007, when 159 bears were captured, according to the Nevada Department of Wildlife. The extent of the drought could make this year even worse, as the bears head into residential areas looking for food.

The threat is a serious one. On Monday, Nevada officials said that three troublesome black bears had been captured in the past week, including one in the foothills of southwest Reno and two in Incline Village, and returned to the wild. Another bear was struck by a car and killed near Spooner Summit.

Incline Village hasn't been a stranger to bear-human conflicts. On occasion, those have even led to human-human conflicts as residents and wildlife officials argued about the best way to deal with problem bears.

What's clear, however, is that trash is the primary culprit. As the NDOW's Carl Lackey told The AP, "...the main issue is people living in bear habitat and allowing bears access to their trash."

The Nevada Wildlife Commission has urged Incline Village residents, as well as those in Washoe and Douglas counties and Carson City, to take action to prevent the bears from having easy access to trash and garbage.

Yet the board of the Incline Village General Improvement District, which recently hired a new general manager, put off until fall, after the peak season for bear encounters, a vote on a proposal to require residents to use trash containers that bears aren't able to open. The trustees want the new general manager to have a chance to study the issue. Washoe County commissioners also put off discussion on bear-resistant containers, in part because of the delay in Incline Village.

Regulations requiring bear-resistant trash containers are common around the U.S., however.

An ordinance in El Dorado County, Calif., requires bear-resistant containers for new construction in some areas, including the Tahoe Truckee Unified and Lake Tahoe Unified school districts and at sites determined to have a bear access problem, for instance. Parts of Jackson Hole, Wyo., require them. Boulder, Colo., began requiring their use in bear-prone neighborhoods this summer. (The city is working with trash haulers on finding suitable bins and dumpster lids.) And they're now required in parts of Seminole County, Fla.

There are a wide variety of designs available and numerous suppliers.

Yes, there will be a cost. The cost of doing nothing, however, could be a lot higher — for the bears and for residents alike.